Israel Supporters Caused the War in Gaza

Many of the Israel supporters are the cause of the current war in Gaza. You caused this war out of love and empathy. You caused this war because you could imagine the pain of your son, your brother being held hostage by sociopathic monsters. You said to yourselves what would I do to bring him back and the answer was a resounding anything. You put bumper stickers on your cars, you wore T shirts, you signed petitions, you updated your Facebook pictures with his picture, you tweeted. Every child in Israel knew his name, and many Jewish children outside of Israel.

No one is mentioning his name anymore because we are all talking about the names 60 other sons who have been taken from us. Again we are crying and feeling the pain as if each of these boys was ours. We see the children of Gaza killed and whether it is by our own mistakes or by the hand of Hamas, we still feel their pain and we weep for them too. We see the mothers in Gaza weep and we feel their pain. Our love is killing us.

Gilad Shalit was deemed to be more important than Gilad Shaar. By your actions he was elevated to the status of celebrity, a life more valuable than all others. His Parents did what any parents should do … anything to save their son, their son not yours. I do not blame them I blame you and your love and empathy.


Disproportionately is the buzzword of the anti Israel lobby in every conflict with Hamas and friends. I share the word but in the sense that releasing 1027 prisoners for one Gilad Shalit is disproportionately
obscene.

When Netanyahu agreed to bring home Gilad Shalit at the same time he signed the death warrant of Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frankel and Eyal Yifrach and of course that of Mohammad Abu Khadir who was brutally murdered by a mentally unstable Jewish Terrorist. and that of Baruch Mizrahi who was murdered by one of the prisoners released in the disproportionate exchange.

Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frankel and Eyal Yifrach

Mohammad Abu Khadir

Baruch Mizrahi

Our Prime Minister  Benjamin Netanyahu knew better, but under tremendous public pressure he made a terrible mistake. In Israeli cabinet meeting in which the agreement was approved, after being supported by 26 ministers and opposed by 3 ministers - Avigdor Lieberman, Moshe Ya'alon, and Uzi Landau who said "... this deal is a triumph for terror and [is] detrimental to Israel's security and deterrence"

It was a great victory for Hamas 1027:1 and from that day the return on investment in tunnel digging increased dramatically. Tunnels were the way to freedom from Israeli prisons, it was open season for kidnapping.

There were many foiled attempts at kidnapping and even the kidnapping and murder of Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frankel and Eyal Yifrach was failed in the eyes of Hamas since they did not get to haggle for the exchange before they were brutally murdered.  But it was a question of when not if we would pay in blood.

Gilad Shalit's release let to the murders discussed above, it led to the terror tunnels being dug at the cost of an estimated 160 child labourers lives. It led to the awful mess we find ourselves in.

I do not advocate never having prisoner swaps butI do advocate proportionality in them.

Do not worry I am not angry at you because you made your mistake out of love.

Debunking the Debunking of Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza

This goes out to Ian S who finds it  astonishing that a "well-regarded" commentator on the Israel-Palestine conflict can be wrong on every point she makes"

Noara Erakat's article Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza—Debunked argues against five of Israel’s recurring talking points" I will look at her arguments and hopefully demonstrate that they are false. I have listed the full text of her argument .


1) Israel is exercising its right to self-defense.

As the occupying power of the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Territories more broadly, Israel has an obligation and a duty to protect the civilians under its occupation. It governs by military and law enforcement authority to maintain order, protect itself and protect the civilian population under its occupation. It cannot simultaneously occupy the territory, thus usurping the self-governing powers that would otherwise belong to Palestinians, and declare war upon them. These contradictory policies (occupying a land and then declaring war on it) make the Palestinian population doubly vulnerable.

This is a clever argument essentially stating you cannot make war on yourself and that nations have an obligation to protect their citizens.  Let's take them one at a time. 

First, as I will discuss further under point #2 (if that one is invalid this one is invalid too) Israel is not the occupying power in Gaza.  In 2005, the the country pulled out of every inch of the Gaza Strip.  Nor does Israel "controI" Gaza in the way suggested here.  One of the reasons Israel pulled out in 2005 was because the area was virtually uncontrollable.  Also, if Israel was able to maintain "Effective Control" in the Gaza strip do we really think that rockets launched from the area would be raining down on major Israeli cities?  I also suggest that there would be no terror tunnels unless Israeli control included attacking itself. 

Second, the writer is correct that a nation must protect its citizens.  In this instance that means that Israel as true democracy must protect its Jewish, Muslim and Christian and atheist citizens  (all of whom can vote) from rocket attacks.  

The precarious and unstable conditions in the Gaza Strip from which Palestinians suffer are Israel’s responsibility. Israel argues that it can invoke the right to self-defense under international law as defined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. The International Court of Justice, however, rejected this faulty legal interpretation in its 2004 Advisory Opinion. The ICJ explained that an armed attack that would trigger Article 51 must be attributable to a sovereign state, but the armed attacks by Palestinians emerge from within Israel’s jurisdictional control. Israel does have the right to defend itself against rocket attacks, but it must do so in accordance with occupation law and not other laws of war. Occupation law ensures greater protection for the civilian population. The other laws of war balance military advantage and civilian suffering. The statement that “no country would tolerate rocket fire from a neighboring country” is therefore both a diversion and baseless.

Oh boy, where to start with this one.  The International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 before the Gaza pullout. A ruling on whether Israel could legitimately invoke the right of self-defense in 2004 is simply irrelevant in 2014.  This is a terrific example of using irrelevant facts to to mislead.  This entire paragraph rest on the assumption that Israel is an occupier in Gaza which is completely erroneous as discussed under #2.  

Israel denies Palestinians the right to govern and protect themselves, while simultaneously invoking the right to self-defense. This is a conundrum and a violation of international law, one that Israel deliberately created to evade accountability.

Here we have Erekat's editorial comment and it is preposterous. Israel allowed Gaza to hold free elections.  That is called governing and is nowhere near "Israel denies Palestinians the right to govern.  In terms of denying Palestinians protection, I have two thoughts: 
1) if Hamas were not lobbing rockets at Israel there would be no reason for the citizens to protect themselves.  It hardly makes sense for Israel to go from controlling the Gaza strip to handing it over to the Palestinians with the intent of attacking the populace.  

2) if Hamas had spent its financial aid building bunkers for the Palestinian people (defensive) rather than terror tunnels to enter Israel and kidnap and slaughter citizens (offensive) the Palestinian people would be far better protected.  Of course, if they were to build malls and schools and institutions of democracy they would be even better protected. 

So now we come to the important #2. 

2) Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.

Israel argues that its occupation of the Gaza Strip ended with the unilateral withdrawal of its settler population in 2005. It then declared the Gaza Strip to be “hostile territory” and declared war against its population. Neither the argument nor the statement is tenable. Despite removing 8,000 settlers and the military infrastructure that protected their illegal presence, Israel maintained effective control of the Gaza Strip and thus remains the occupying power as defined by Article 47 of the Hague Regulations. To date, Israel maintains control of the territory’s air space, territorial waters, electromagnetic sphere, population registry and the movement of all goods and people.

The core of this argument is that Israel maintains control of the Gaza Strip because it controls air space, territorial waters, and movement of goods and people. So let me be completely and utterly clear on this point: the Gaza naval blockade and other issues raised are fully approved and enforced by the UN as being within International law. Why? Well, in 1993 and 1995 Israel and the leaders of the Palestinian people agreed to the terms in the Oslo accords.  In those terms, Israel made it very clear that the territorial waters around Gaza were to remain theirs.  That was fully agreed to by the Palestinians!  

Israel does restrict Gazan airspace and territorial waters for the purpose of preventing weapons transfer into Gaza. 

I am not sure what an Electromagnetic sphere is, I will assume it  is referring to Radio, TV, Telecommunications and Internet. Hamas has it own rabidly anti semitic TV station which encourages kindergarten children to murder of Jews. Is Israel controlling that? Since 2007, Hamas has blocked the radio station of the Palestinian Authority. These are not signs of Israeli control. Gaza has relatively open internet despite the burning down of internet Cafes by Islamists. 

As by the Oslo accords Israel keeps a copy of a population registry, having one's name in the Israeli copy of the registry can  allow certain privileges to a Palestinian. As by the Oslo accords Article II.1.f.(5)  The right to vote in Palestinian Elections they are in either the Israeli or Palestinian register. Israel also uses the register to determine whether or not to issue Palestinians with a work permit in Israel. This has nothing to do with controlling Palestinians in Gaza. 

Israel controls the movement of goods and people between Israel and Gaza. The Rafah Border Crossing between Gaza and Egypt is not controlled by Israel, thus it is false to say the control the movement of all goods and people. Every country has the right to control the movement of goods and people between their country and its neighbours.  Note the policing of the U.S. and Mexico border as an example.

Israel argues that the withdrawal from Gaza demonstrates that ending the occupation will not bring peace. Some have gone so far as to say that Palestinians squandered their opportunity to build heaven in order to build a terrorist haven instead. These arguments aim to obfuscate Israel’s responsibilities in the Gaza Strip, as well as the West Bank. As Prime Minister Netanyahu once explained, Israel must ensure that it does not “get another Gaza in Judea and Samaria…. I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.”

Wow.  This paragraph makes complete sense.  Perhaps because these are not Erekat's ideas but those taken from elsewhere.  

Palestinians have yet to experience a day of self-governance. Israel immediately imposed a siege upon the Gaza Strip when Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006 and tightened it severely when Hamas routed Fatah in June 2007. The siege has created a “humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip. Inhabitants will not be able to access clean water, electricity or tend to even the most urgent medical needs. The World Health Organization explains that the Gaza Strip will be unlivable by 2020. Not only did Israel not end its occupation, it has created a situation in which Palestinians cannot survive in the long-term. 

This is just completely false.  Either Erekat is so blinded by hatred that the mistake is honest or its a deliberate attempt to mislead.  What was the first election if not a day of self-governance (not to mention all the days leading up to the election)? Furthermore, the naval blockade was put in place AFTER Hamas declared all out war with Israel and started shelling it's cities. Israel is fully entitled under to international law to put in place a blockade in it's own territorial waters as a means of self defence. The UN has never challenged this action because it is so completely water tight. Finally, the election of Hamas in 2006 was the most forceful rocket Palestinians have launched at Israel.  Hamas is considered a terrorist organisation by most democratic countries around the world.  The United States added Hamas to their list of terrorist organisations in 1997 -- well prior to the events of the World Trade Center bombing.

Ultimately, the Palestinians had a chance to govern themselves. They elected a terrorist organisation that started firing rockets at a democracy.  In short, Erekat's statement is almost true.  We can fix it by adding the word "good" so the sentence should read: "Palestinians have yet to experience a day of good self government.

As for in habitants not being able to access electricity etc., Israel provides 100 megawatts of electricity to Gaza. The Palestinian Authority owes Israel Electricity Company around half a billion dollars in unpaid electricity bills. On July 13th, some areas in Gaza lost electricity which was promptly blamed on Israel.  The reason for the outage was that a Hamas rocket hit the power lines running into Gaza. Israel repaired the line at its own expense while risking the lives of its own population.  As a final comment, Israel allows medical products and food and other non military products through it borders to Gaza.

So now back to Netanyahu's comments about Gaza. The test of self-rule in Gaza has been a disaster for Israel and an utter disaster for the Palestinians themselves.  Whatever Israel allows has been turned against them.  They pulled out and allowed Gazans to elect a government.  What did they get? A terrorist organisation.  They allowed goods to flow across the borders and what did Hamas bring in?  Rockets that they promptly started firing in 2007.  Israel put in place a blockade to try stem the rockets but allowed in cement, iron and other building products and what did they get? Massive underground tunnels beneath their border and beneath the homes of civilians in Gaza. There is no advantage in these activities for the people in Gaza and it only makes sense in a world where Hamas believes one dead Jew is worth the sacrifice of a hundred Palestinians.  As I said, there is simply no good government.

Edit I am including this excellent link I debating the above two points
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.il/2014/07/is-gaza-legally-occupied-by-israel-no.html#.U9qbH4CSzwM

3) This Israeli operation, among others, was caused by rocket fire from Gaza.

Israel claims that its current and past wars against the Palestinian population in Gaza have been in response to rocket fire. Empirical evidence from 2008, 2012 and 2014 refute that claim. First, according to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the greatest reduction of rocket fire came through diplomatic rather than military means. This chart demonstrates the correlation between Israel’s military attacks upon the Gaza Strip and Hamas militant activity. Hamas rocket fire increases in response to Israeli military attacks and decreases in direct correlation to them. Cease-fires have brought the greatest security to the region.

This is a deliberate attempt to mislead less sophisticated readers or Erekat has no clue about numerical analysis.  It is disingenuous to claim that Hamas rocket fire is a response to Israeli aggression because a chart shows they are correlated.  It will just take a cursory examination of news articles over the years to show that this analysis is, like their rockets, off target. When Israel responds to initial rocket fire from Hamas , Hamas escalates the rate of rocket fire and the statistic increases. That is why there is a "correlation" between Israel's military operations and rocket fire.  Glancing at the graphs without examining the exact timing of each incident is uninformative but if you like this kind of statistical stupidity you can find more by looking at the relationship of skirt length to the U.S. stock market and dream about how shorter skirts are going to make you money. 

During the four months of the Egyptian-negotiated cease-fire in 2008, Palestinian militants reduced the number of rockets to zero or single digits from the Gaza Strip. Despite this relative security and calm, Israel broke the cease-fire to begin the notorious aerial and ground offensive that killed 1,400 Palestinians in twenty-two days. In November 2012, Israel’s extrajudicial assassination of Ahmad Jabari, the chief of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza, while he was reviewing terms for a diplomatic solution, again broke the cease-fire that precipitated the eight-day aerial offensive that killed 132 Palestinians.

I'm not sure I see the relevance here other than to build no the ridiculous analysis already discussed and to blame Israel for the deaths of people in Gaza.   

Immediately preceding Israel’s most recent operation, Hamas rocket and mortar attacks did not threaten Israel. Israel deliberately provoked this war with Hamas. Without producing a shred of evidence, it accused the political faction of kidnapping and murdering three settlers near Hebron. Four weeks and almost 700 lives later, Israel has yet to produce any evidence demonstrating Hamas’s involvement. During ten days of Operation Brother’s Keeper in the West Bank, Israel arrested approximately 800 Palestinians without charge or trial, killed nine civilians and raided nearly 1,300 residential, commercial and public buildings. Its military operation targeted Hamas members released during the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011. It’s these Israeli provocations that precipitated the Hamas rocket fire to which Israel claims left it with no choice but a gruesome military operation.

This is absurd. Israel has provided evidence that Hamas was behind the kidnapping and murder of three innocent teenage boys. Israel named the two chief suspects Amar Abu-Eisha, 33, and Marwan Kawasmeh, 29. They are both Hamas operatives. Israel has released a tape recording of the voices of the Hamas suspects taken when Naftali Frenkel attempted to call the police with his mobile phone. Erakat refers to them as settlers although only one of the three lived in the West Bank and could therefore be classed as a settler by the commonly accepted definition.  

There are so many erroneous facts here it's hard to tell what's going on but stick with me. If you examine the time line of the events proceeding this operation you can see that the claim Israel started this is just wrong.  First off, Israel arrested 422 Palestinians, not 800 and raided 2218 homes not 1300. Nine civilians were not killed during the raids. Each of the deaths has its own background, 3 were heart attacks and others were in response to attacks and were not civilians. 

Ultimately, consider a the situation: Three civilians are kidnapped.  The evidence points to Hamas and Israel brings in Hamas operatives to ascertain where the boys are.  Hamas response is not to help Israel locate the missing children but to fire rockets at civilians. That's the narrative behind the numbers. 

4) Israel avoids civilian casualties, but Hamas aims to kill civilians.

Hamas has crude weapons technology that lacks any targeting capability. As such, Hamas rocket attacks ipso facto violate the principle of distinction because all of its attacks are indiscriminate. This is not contested. Israel, however, would not be any more tolerant of Hamas if it strictly targeted military objects, as we have witnessed of late. Israel considers Hamas and any form of its resistance, armed or otherwise, to be illegitimate.

Yes, Israel considers attacks on its population to be illegitimate.  Erekat said in the first paragraph that the state is responsible for protecting its citizens and cannot have it both ways.  That said, attacks on legitimate military targets would have a lot more supporters within Israel.

In contrast, Israel has the eleventh most powerful military in the world, certainly the strongest by far in the Middle East, and is a nuclear power that has not ratified the non-proliferation agreement and has precise weapons technology. With the use of drones, F-16s and an arsenal of modern weapon technology, Israel has the ability to target single individuals and therefore to avoid civilian casualties. But rather than avoid them, Israel has repeatedly targeted civilians as part of its military operations.

Earlier, Erekat blamed Israel for going after Hamas leadership with a targeted attack but is now advocating those same targeted attacks.  But this is where things are just preposterous once again.  Erakat admits that Hamas targets civilians because they have crude weapons.  If Israel were to use similar weapons would the targeting of civilian populations be OK with Erakat?  Israel spends a fortune on advanced weapons systems to AVOID civilian casualties to the degree possible and should be applauded for making that investment.  Crude weapons are indiscriminate and are intended to create terror.  That's why Hamas is considered a terrorist organisation.

The Dahiya Doctrine is central to these operations and refers to Israel’s indiscriminate attacks on Lebanon in 2006. Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot said that this would be applied elsewhere:

What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. […] We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases.

Israel has kept true to this promise. The 2009 UN Fact-Finding Mission to the Gaza Conflict, better known as the Goldstone Mission, concluded “from a review of the facts on the ground that it witnessed for itself that what was prescribed as the best strategy [Dahiya Doctrine] appears to have been precisely what was put into practice.”

According to the National Lawyers Guild, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, Israel directly targeted civilians or recklessly caused civilian deaths during Operation Cast Lead. Far from avoiding the deaths of civilians, Israel effectively considers them legitimate targets.

Hamas Hamas digs terror tunnels and their planned to invade Israel during the Jewish New Year and kill and kidnap as many civilians as the could There have also been three other attempted incursions in recent days, the motives which are unclear, but would surprise none if the target was indiscriminate. Unsubstantiated estimates suggest around  child labourers died constructing the terror tunnels, 600,000 of tons of cement  are estimated to have been used in the subset of tunnels so far discovered by Israel Military. In wars sadly there are always unintentional civilian deaths, just as there are always friendly fire deaths, war is chaotic and stressful and human errors happen. No army even the ones with the most sophisticated weapons can avoid this, it has never happened. Nato, US, UK and other ethical armies always inflict civilian deaths.  Israel's environment is arguably the most challenging of all a densely populated urban region where there are multiple documented cases of  Hamas attacking from civilian areas and even the frequent use of human shields. The number of civilians killed in Gaza  is very contestable and both sides gain by either inflating or deflating the ration of civilian to enemy combatant  casualties. The measures Israel takes to minimise civilian deaths are well known. and include roof knocking, telephone calls, text messages, and abandoning strikes if civilians are spotted.  Erakat claims without basis the ""Israel, however, would not be any more tolerant of Hamas if it strictly targeted military objects" It is without basis since there is no precedent of Hamas only attacking military targets.

With regards to the Goldstone report Richard Goldstone distanced himself from the report. Erakat's fails to mention this fact since she is obviously trying to mislead the reader. 

5) Hamas hides its weapons in homes, mosques and schools and uses human shields.

This is arguably one of Israel’s most insidious claims, because it blames Palestinians for their own death and deprives them of even their victimhood. Israel made the same argument in its war against Lebanon in 2006 and in its war against Palestinians in 2008. Notwithstanding its military cartoon sketches, Israel has yet to prove that Hamas has used civilian infrastructure to store military weapons. The two cases where Hamas indeed stored weapons in UNRWA schools, the schools were empty. UNRWA discovered the rockets and publicly condemned the violation of its sanctity.

International human rights organizations that have investigated these claims have determined that they are not true. It attributed the high death toll in Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon to Israel’s indiscriminate attacks. Human Rights Watch notes:

The evidence Human Rights Watch uncovered in its on-the-ground investigations refutes [Israel’s] argument…we found strong evidence that Hezbollah stored most of its rockets in bunkers and weapon storage facilities located in uninhabited fields and valleys, that in the vast majority of cases Hezbollah fighters left populated civilian areas as soon as the fighting started, and that Hezbollah fired the vast majority of its rockets from pre-prepared positions outside villages.

In fact, only Israeli soldiers have systematically used Palestinians as human shields. Since Israel’s incursion into the West Bank in 2002, it has used Palestinians as human shields by tying young Palestinians onto the hoods of their cars or forcing them to go into a home where a potential militant may be hiding.

To deny that Hamas uses homes, mosques, schools to store weapons is crazy there are multiple documented photos and video of homes, schools and mosques being used systematically to store weapons. The UN acknowledged that weapons were stored in two of it's schools one of which was vacant. Hamas does store many rockets in bunkers and encourages its civilian population to act as human shields. In early July 2014 Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri appeared on Al-Aqsa TV and encouraged Gaza residents to act as human shields. There are multiple videos online. There were some allegations of isolated cases of Israel using Human shields in previous operations, as far as I am aware no allegations have been made in the current operation and to claim this illegal and abhorrent practice is systematic is completely false.

As promised I have shown all five points made by Noura Erakat to be wrong. She is a scholar and Attorney and has the resources and knowledge to do a far better analysis than I have, I do it in my time I should be relaxing or sleeping.  Luckily for me I have the far easier side of the argument since I have the truth on my side.

Why isn't Hamas shooting rockets at Egypt ?

A question often asked but not really answered is why is Hamas shooting rockets at Israel. The response is normally an incoherent answer, where you will hear the words, occupation, blockade, prisoners thrown.

Hamas have no understandable reason to be shooting at Israel, and whatever reason they do have applies equally if not more so to Egypt

Why isn't Hamas shooting rockets at Egypt ?

1)  Neither Israel nor Egypt occupy any of the Palestinian territory in Gaza. Israel withdrew every last Jew from Gaza in 2005 and do not occupy 1cm of Gaza.

2)  Egypt and Israel both impose a blockade restricting goods flowing into Gaza. The purpose of the blockade is to prevent to influx of arms into Gaza.  Israel Supplies over half of Gaza's electricity. The Palestinians owe billions of Shekels to the Israeli Electricity.  Most of Gaza's liquid fuel is supplied through Israel. Both Egypt and Israel for the most part allow the free transfer of humanitarian items into Gaza.

3)  Egypt and Israel both have arrested hundreds of Hamas and Hamas affiliated individuals read Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt has recently confirmed the death sentences of 182 of the 683 Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas affiliated individuals. Israeli law has no death sentence.

As demonstrated none of the three reasons above hold much water.

The only remaining explanation is for Hamas's continued suicidal attack on Israel is an Islamic Jihad against the Jews. This is not something which Hamas hides, they openly state in their charter. "The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'

However despite all evidence to the contrary the abundant support for the people of Gaza throughout the non Islamic world insists on ignoring this explanation and  contriving to find a reason which they can understand for the actions of Hamas.

I will not go into my theories and explanations as to why this is. I would be happy if each an every anti Israel protestor asked themselves honestly one question. Why is Hamas not firing rockets at Egypt. If they do this with an open mind you will realise that Hamas and Al Qaeda are alike and neither are victims.

Response to "Understanding The Permanence Of Greater Israel"

I am writing because my anger has been stirred by the writing of Andrew Sullivan.(@sullydish).    understanding the permanence of greater Israel. His article was in itself a response to Jeffery Goldbergs excellent article What, Exactly, Is Hamas Trying to Prove?

@sullydish's blog 'The Dish' has the tagline "Biased and Balanced", this article is clearly the former.  To quote from the article:

"It also helps distract from the fact that Hamas itself did not kill the three Israeli teens which was the casus belli for the latest Israeli swoop through the West Bank; that Netanyahu had called for generalized revenge in the wake of the killings, while concealing the fact that the teens had been murdered almost as soon as they had been captured; and that Israeli public hysteria, tapping into the Gilad-like trauma of captivity, then began to spawn increasingly ugly, sectarian and racist acts of revenge and brutality. It also side-steps the rather awful fact that this nihilist and futile war crime is all that Hamas has really got left."

@sullydish starts with the statement "Hamas itself did not kill the three Israeli teens". Israeli intelligence has named two Hamas activists from Hebron, Marwan Kawasmeh, 29, and Amar Abu-Isa, 32, as the prime suspects. Perhaps they are innocent of this heinous crime, perhaps @sullydish has inside knowledge as to whom is the guilty party.

@sullydishgoes onto say "Netanyahu had called for generalized revenge in the wake of the killings" this is completely untrue and I beg to see a source of this fallacious statement. After the vile revenge killing off 16 Year old Mohammed Abu Khdeir apparently by a mentally unstable Jewish terrorist and his minor accomplices. Netanyahu pointedly denounced the murder of Abu Khdeir in the strongest possible terms and spoke out forcefully against vigilantes taking the law into their own hands. jpost ref

The "casus belli" was not  the murder of the 3 boys but rather a huge escalation in rockets fired at Israel by Hamas, it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise. Hamas was looking for an escalation and it's continued refusal to accept a cease fire shows that it still wants the status quo to continue. Why ? read Jeffery Goldberg's article above. for some intelligent insight.

His next statement is also incorrect "concealing the fact that the teens had been murdered almost as soon as they had been captured". While the teens were killed soon after capture the only evidence were shots heard an audio recording of the telephone call placed by Naftali Frankel to the police. This left ample room for reasonable doubt as to whether the boys were alive. The families of the victims were party to this evidence and they still had hope of finding their sons alive. 

"began to spawn increasingly ugly, sectarian and racist acts of revenge and brutality" @sullydish is completely correct in his description here but the wording leaves me with the feeling that multiple brutal incidents occurred, where the facts are that there where some minor incidents and one truly despicable murder.  

"Yes, they conceal armaments and rockets and weapons in civilian areas – and that undoubtedly increases civilian deaths. But what alternative do they have exactly, if they wish to have any military capacity at all? Should they build clearly demarcated camps and barracks and munitions stores, where the IDF could just destroy them at will? As for the argument that no democratic society could tolerate terrorist attacks without responding with this kind of disproportionate force, what about the country I grew up in, where pubs and department stores in the mainland were blown up, where the prime minister and her entire cabinet were bombed and some killed in a hotel? I don’t recall aerial bombing of Catholic areas in Belfast, do you? Or fatality numbers approaching 200 – 0? Democratic countries are marked by this kind of restraint – not by calls for revenge and bombardment of a densely populated urban area, where civilian casualties, even with the best precision targeting and warnings, are inevitable." 

His next paragraph is possible the most abhorrent.  @sullydish is excusing the use of human shields because it works. Why does it work, it works because the Israeli army according to Col. Richard Kemp testimony at U.N. in 2009 does more to safeguard the rights of Palestinian civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. Richard Kemp's Testimony . There is no justification ever for using human shields it is indefensible.

Sullivan then uses a very weak and factually incorrect argument to try and show British moral superiority when dealing with the IRA and condemning Israel's . He uses the Brighton hotel bombing as an example to show that the British did not retaliate by bombing Catholic Belfast. "prime minister and her entire cabinet were bombed and some killed in a hotel" , no member of the cabinet was killed. Brighton_hotel_bombing , but that is beside the point.  Belfast was "Occupied" by the British, where Gaza is a self governed territory without any ground access to Israeli forces. Israel has never had aerial bombardment against any city in the West Bank which they can access to capture any terrorists. Hamas attacks Israeli civilians indiscriminately. The IRA targets for the most part were not intended to cause civilian casualties. Their standard practice was to give advance warning of any bombs to avoid civilian casualties. Hamas tries to maximise civilian or other casualties. @sullydish's analogy is at best extremely weak. 

"And there is, for all the talk of aggression on both sides, no serious equivalence in capabilities between Hamas and the IDF. The IDF has the firepower to level Gaza to the ground if it really wants to. Hamas, if it’s lucky, might get a rocket near a town or city. I suppose Israel’s reluctance just to raze Gaza for good and all is why John McCain marveled that in a war where one side has had more than 170 fatalities, 1,200 casualties, 80 percent of whom are civilians, and the other side has no fatalities and a handful of injuries, Israel has somehow practiced restraint. One wonders what no restraint would mean."

This next paragraph is almost totally accurate for @sullydish. It is a pity that his tone is sarcastic because he has hit the nail on the head. I could not have said it better. The only fact I could contest is the 80% but that number is too difficult to prove or to disprove, I nor anyone else knows the real number.

"And look at the image above (IMAGE of a bombed Mosque). Part of our skewed perspective is revealed by it. Imagine for a second that Hamas had leveled a synagogue. Can you imagine what Israel would feel justified in doing as a response? Or imagine if a Jewish extended family of 18 had been massacred by Hamas, including children? Would we not be in a major international crisis? At some point the lightness with which we treat Palestinian suffering compared with Jewish suffering needs to be addressed as an urgent moral matter. The United States is committed to human rights, not rights scaled to one’s religious heritage or race."

In his next paragraph sully requests to to imagine some hypothetical incidents and the fallout. I do not know why he did not consult history. He says imagine a family of 18 were killed , what about the Passover massacre with 33 killed. Back at the time when this happened I have heard that Sullivan was actually a staunch pro Iraq war supporter and a supporter of Israel, apparently he changed allegiances, to the left  since apparently because of the Bush administrations stance on gay issues. There have been many synagogue bombings by Palestinian terrorists over the years none of these synagogue was suspected of being a weapons cache where Israel had the pictures to prove it. Israel Hits Mosque

"But this morning, as if to balance Hamas’s blame for every single death in the conflict, Goldblog feels the need to chide the Israeli prime minister for his “mistake” in having utter contempt for any two-state solution. “Mistake” is an interesting word to use."

I did notice that he had misspelled Goldberg and Goldblog in the following paragraph, I thought this was appropriate as he would not want to sully his record of factual inconsistencies in every paragraph. 

I could not read further I felt sullied by the irrational hate levelled at Israel. 

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Post by ‎חדשות10‎.